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Christie had already established a reputation as a detective novelist

The principal sources for my account of Christie’s life and work, including her disappearance, are listed in the Select Bibliography. The tireless research work undertaken by both Tony Medawar and John Curran has proved especially valuable.

his French rivals Arsene Lupin and Joseph Rouletabille

Created respectively by Maurice Leblanc (1864–1941) and Gaston Leroux (1868–1927). Rouletabille first appeared in the classic ‘locked room’ novel, The Mystery of the Yellow Room, but thanks to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, Leroux is now better remembered as author of The Phantom of the Opera.

she tried to supplement her finances by entering newspaper competitions

See Tony Medawar, ‘On this Day’, CADS 64, November 2012, for accounts of Christie’s prize competition entry, and the mock trials mentioned here and in chapter 6.

The Swedish writer Major Samuel August Duse … had previously used a comparable device

Duse’s work is discussed by Bo Lundin in The Swedish Crime Story (1981).

T. S. Eliot reckoned it was a ‘brilliant Maskelyne trick’

Jasper Maskelyne (1902–73) was a British stage magician, and a member of a family of stage magicians, the son of Nevil Maskelyne and a grandson of John Nevil Maskelyne. The Maskelynes’ claims to fame include not only the creation of countless tricks that fascinated Carr, but also the invention of the coin-in-the-slot toilet door, which has yet to be deployed in a locked cubicle whodunit. John Nevil invented a character dressed in a Chinese-style silk tunic, capable of playing hands of the card games whist and nap, and named Psycho. Psycho appeared to move of its own accord, but was in fact operated by concealed bellows.